


Bugged Out

by solar_prestige



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice, qotd
Genre: Blood, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 15:53:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19872172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solar_prestige/pseuds/solar_prestige
Summary: There was a horrid shift in his consciousness; he saw this being like a great insect, a monstrous evil predator who had devoured a million human lives. - Queen of the DamnedA fever dream for Daniel's brought on by illness and drink. Inspired by the art of superhiki.





	Bugged Out

**Author's Note:**

> Originaly posted to Tumblr, this piece was inspired by the art of Superhiki. Please, find the original art here: https://superhiki.tumblr.com/post/178385538640
> 
> Thank you for reading! It's only small.

Daniel opened his throat and let the last of the bourbon burn down his throat. Even though he was sat cross legged on the lumpy mattress of one of the many roach motels he often found himself, he found the muscles of his abdomen needed to jerk and strain to keep him upright. Inevitably, he lost the battle and dropped backward onto his elbow then collapsed flat on his back.

The ceiling twisted and spun back and forth, lit intermittently by the red neon flashing lights of the all-night convenience store outside his window. The bile and bourbon swished and splashed inside him and burned its way up his throat, but he wouldn’t vomit. He’s spent his last twenty dollars on the drink the day before, and not a drop would be wasted. The blinking red light pulsed in time with his fevered heartbeat.

On off

On off

On off

He turned to read the sign after the spins had eased, but it was too close to the window, too bright to read in his state. With a groan, he sat up and pulled the shirt off his back before he dropped right back onto the bed. Heavy lids closed and burned against his dehydrated lids. Still, the lights strobed all around him, throbbing in his head, in his veins, deep in his muscles. he tuned his head, but they continued to pound on his chest.

On off

On off

On off

There was too much. Too much in the room, too much in his brain, too much in the world. Too much of him. Was it too much to ask it to stop? Just stop. Stop this crazy thing! The world spun too fast. the ride wasn’t fun anymore. With a growl, he clumsily crawled his body up with every intention of closing the blinds, if there were any. Just a little peace couldn’t hurt anyone. Certainly no one would object to a little quiet.

When his eyelids peeled back, the red light was even brighter than before, and there, at the foot of the bed, was Armand. His white skin reflected the neon light back at Daniel like laser beams to blind him. His luminous eyes seemed to grow with each flicker of the light. He was bewitching. His golden eyes seemed to glow in the pitch blackness between flicks.

Daniel couldn’t move. The neon light pulsed more quickly as the little devil’s red hands lifted and drew over the bed to Daniel’s bare feet and naked legs. The instant those impossibly cold fingers touched his foot, he felt the skittering of tiny insect feet. His breath caught in his throat, he tried to pull away, but those hands squished the tiny bugs, splattered their guts over his ankles and held him down.

At once, the devil’s fingers disjointed, pulled from his hand joint by joint, grew tiny legs and began to skitter up his leg. They stepped over the tiny hairs, brushed against them. Sixty bleeding segmented fingers crawled up into his shorts, tickled over his sex, further between his legs. All the while, the light stabbed his eyes, blinded him, and illuminated the freakish creature that held him.

On off

On off

On off

His eyes were impossibly huge. They were golden circles that reach his hair line and dipped down to meet the line of his lip. The grotesque smile on his wide, impossibly wide, wrapped all around his face, open to unleash the black maw that was once his mouth. The fangs in his mouth flashed blood red with the neon flashing. They dripped ruby beads onto the blanket between his legs, smoked, and bored acid holes that hissed and fizzed in the red light.

Daniel couldn’t move or scream. All that escaped him was infantile squeak of desperation as the fingers found his waistband and were trapped. As if affirming there was nothing he could do, the creature lifted the empty palms from his ankles. They turned acid green, sprouted three rows of flies’ wings and poured buckets of the sizzling, foaming blood on to his feet. It oozed and dripped and burned up his body over his shorts. It dripped over his abdomen, pooled in his navel. Each winged palm landed on his belly and smeared the blood, spread it more evenly over him.

His feet and ankles smoked, the acrid smell of melting flesh filled the air with the burning light. Daniel saw with horror as the palms caressed him, as the fingers worked at the waist of his shorts, that Armand’s tongue hung out of his mouth stiffly, sampling the liquid of Daniel’s legs. The tongue curled back into black nothingness behind the teeth.

Faster than Daniel to see, the tongue unrolled and stretched and pierced his neck. His chest was on fire in the pounding red neon that pounded into his veins so fast now, there was no longer a pause between flashes.

On off on off on off

He could see his own blood being pulled from him, up that hypodermic needle of a tongue in streams and into the beast where he feet used to be. The glowing creature, glowing, pulsing, squirming, and growing, unfurled its huge crimson wings. The fangs salivated the bloody acid onto his hips, for it had grown to fill the entire room and loomed over Daniel’s prone body.

The fingers in his shorts had multiplied and they all burst the elastic, and all crawled up his chest, over his neck, into his hair, his ears, his eyes, and his mouth. He could taste the blood. The acid that burned away his feet melted away his tongue, burned down his esophagus worse than the bourbon ever had. It smoked through his chest, collapsed him from the inside.

The face that was once so beautiful, crowned with neon curls, bore down on him slowly. Slowly closing the distance between the acid fangs and Daniel’s face. It dripped on his lips, full to bursting with bloody fingers, and ate away the skin of his face. The wings, the massive segmented body of the creature over him finally began to block the bursts of light. The million tiny legs stabbed his fleshy sides and released the billions of fingers that had burrowed into him.

The flashing hair touched what was left of his acid eaten face. The tongue still slurped his essence until he was nothing but a heap of bleached bone, as white as the skin of the creature on top him.

“Daniel. My beautiful boy.”

The room was finally black. The skittering had finally stopped because there was no more skin, no more nerves, and he was dead.

“Wake up, beloved. Open your eyes.”

The lights were back along with smearing hands and the taste of blood. Armand, the whole, fully formed and beautiful monster he had known was on the bed with him. His hands explored Daniel’s body brazenly, dipping between his legs and then all the way up into his hair. Tears burned in Daniel’s bloodshot eyes, and the light still flashed.

On off

On off

On off

“No. God, no. Please, no.”


End file.
